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How to Go From Evaluation to Inspiration
TIME: We live in a culture saturated with evaluation. In school, we learn to take tests. We take the tests, and depending on the outcome, either feel really smart or really stupid. We then prepare for college entrance exams. And then graduate entrance exams. And then occupational entrance exams. Then on the job, we are constantly being evaluated, evaluated, evaluated. With all this evaluating, we have little time left for inspiration. We have little time left to explore the full range of possible roles in life, and see which really activates us. This matters.
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The Magic Of Words
NPR: The philosopher George Berkeley famously argued (contra John Locke) that we can never have truly abstract ideas — ideas stripped of all particulars and details. When I think of a triangle, I imagine a particular triangle, not some abstract idea of "triangle." When I think of a dog, I imagine a golden retriever or a Yorkie or a mutt — not a "general" dog that embodies only the essence of "dogness," devoid of all nonessential features.
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Another Reason to Oppose the Death Penalty
Pacific Standard: If you support the death penalty, in spite of the many compelling arguments to the contrary, you must concede it is only morally acceptable if carried out in a fundamentally fair way. Surely the decision to impose this most final of punishments must not be subject to the biases or whims of jurors or jurists. Well, newly published research suggests who lives and who dies is determined, to a significant degree, by gut-level instinct. It finds the decision to impose a death sentence is based in part on a completely irrational construct: Whether the convict has what is perceived as a trustworthy face. Read the whole story: Pacific Standard
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Here’s the Best Way to Make Your Exercise Habit Stick
TIME: It’s not always easy to convince yourself to exercise after a long day of work. (Ok, it’s never easy.) But people who consistently manage to do it may be using a simple trick—whether they realize it or not—according to a new study published in the journal Health Psychology. The most consistent exercisers, researchers found, were those who made exercise into a specific type of habit—one triggered by a cue, like hearing your morning alarm and going to the gym without even thinking about it, or getting stressed and immediately deciding to exercise. “It’s not something you have to deliberate about; you don’t have to consider the pros and cons of going to the gym after work,” explains L.
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Brain Scientist: How Pixar’s ‘Inside Out’ Gets One Thing Deeply Wrong
Wbur: Pixar’s “Inside Out” is the latest in a long tradition of animated entertainment that teaches us about science. Chemistry, as I learned from Saturday morning cartoons, is about mixing colorful, bubbling liquids in test tubes until they explode. “Roadrunner and Coyote” cartoons—those fine nature documentaries—taught me physics: If you run off a cliff, you’ll hang in mid-air until the unfortunate moment that you look down. Computer science is apparently about robots that kill you. And now, with “Inside Out,” we finally have cartoon neuroscience. Your brain, it turns out, is populated with characters for each emotion, and they press buttons to control your expressions.
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How to Maximize Your Vacation Happiness
New York Magazine: The sad thing about vacations is that they end. However much fun you’re having at the beach or carving down a ski mountain or at your sustainable carbon-neutral ecolodge in the rainforest, the specter of your trip home and the resumption of normal day-to-day annoyances is always right there. And as Jennifer Senior pointed out last year, there is indeed a fair amount of research showing that shortly after you return from a vacation, your happiness level bounces back to where it was beforehand.
